What is SAP S/4HANA? | erpsupports

SAP S/4HANA is an ERP business suite based on the SAP HANA in-memory database that enables businesses to conduct real-time transactions and analyze data.

SAP’s approach for enabling customers to undertake digital transformation, a broadly defined process in which they can modify existing business processes and models or build new ones, is centred on S/4HANA. This enables businesses to be more adaptable, responsive, and resilient in the face of shifting business needs, customer demands, and environmental conditions. This S/4HANA-based business environment is referred to as the intelligent enterprise by SAP.

Features of S/4HANA (What is SAP S/4HANA?)

S/4HANA was created with a simpler data model, lean architecture, and a new user experience based on the tile-based SAP Fiori UX to make ERP more modern, faster, and easier to use. S/4HANA includes or integrates a number of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics. S/4HANA can help solve complex problems in real time and analyse more data faster than prior SAP ERP systems because to the SAP HANA in-memory database architecture and the integration of modern technologies.

S/4HANA on-premises can also be installed in public or private clouds, or as a hybrid. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a multi-tenant SaaS version that differs from the on-premises version in terms of modules and functionalities.

S/4HANA has a long and illustrious history.

S/4HANA was released to tremendous fanfare in February 2015, with then-CEO Bill McDermott hailing it as the most important product in SAP’s history. The product was built to take use of HANA, which was released in 2011. S/4HANA stands for Suite for HANA. S/4HANA was rewritten from the ground up for HANA, as opposed to Business Suite on HANA, a HANA-enabled version of S/4HANA’s predecessor, SAP ERP Central Component (ECC), introduced in 2013..

Lines of business for S/4HANA (What is SAP S/4HANA?)

S/4HANA used to be made up of modules, each of which had functionality for a certain business process. Simple Finance was the initial module, which reduced financial processes and provided real-time financial data analysis. It enabled firms integrate their financial and non-financial data into what SAP refers to as a single source of truth, and it was later renamed SAP Finance. SAP Finance is frequently used by Business Suite users as the initial step toward S/4HANA.

SAP added modules and capabilities such as the following:

Materials Management and Operations was featured in S/4HANA 1511, which was released in November 2015.

Advanced Available-to-Promise, Inventory Management, Material Requirements Planning, Extended Warehouse Management, and Environment, Health, and Safety were all added in S/4HANA 1610, which was published in October 2016. (EHS).

S/4HANA’s benefits :

S/4HANA is a complicated ERP system designed for large, complex businesses that allows them to standardise business processes across many locations and organisational entities. Manufacturing, procurement, supply chain, distribution, retail, and financial services all benefit from a comprehensive set of skills aimed at meeting the complicated business needs of these industries.

SAP is the world’s largest ERP vendor by market share and sales, thus it spends a lot of money on R&D for S/4HANA. As a result, S/4HANA is at the cutting edge of ERP capabilities, incorporating innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, industrial IoT, blockchain, and advanced analytics.

S/4HANA also has the advantage of being based on the HANA in-memory database. This boosts processing speed and allows for real-time analytics and transactions, which is critical for businesses that need financial reports right away.

S/4HANA’s complexity, on the other hand, may make it inappropriate for firms with simple requirements. Because S/4HANA is costly to develop and maintain, it’s best suited for companies with the resources to do so.

Because S/4HANA has a very different architecture, data model, and capabilities than earlier SAP ERP systems like ECC, it can suffer from a shortage of developers and administrators with advanced S/4HANA skills and expertise, albeit this was a bigger problem in the beginning. To implement and operate the environment, many S/4HANA users must work with third-party systems integrators, which can raise expenses. If projects are not adequately managed or needs are not clearly established, the complexity of S/4HANA raises the risk of failure implementations.

S/4HANA implementation

S/4HANA was created as an on-premises software system, but it may also be used in a cloud environment. The majority of clients who migrate to the cloud chose SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which is a separate product from normal S/4HANA. The first versions of S/4HANA Cloud had much less capabilities than S/4HANA, but with succeeding releases, the feature sets have become more similar.

In a private cloud environment housed on the servers of a cloud service provider, the standard on-premises S/4HANA can be deployed. Companies who want some of the benefits of cloud computing, such as not having to manage infrastructure and not having to share the cloud environment with other instances of the ERP system, typically choose this option.

S/4HANA can also be used in hybrid setups, where some instances are hosted in the cloud and some are on-premises. Companies that have security or data governance needs typically choose this deployment option.

How do you go about putting S/4HANA into action?

Implementing S/4HANA, regardless of the deployment strategy used, is a complex, time-consuming, and expensive operation. Most S/4HANA clients will be replacing older SAP ECC systems, however a migration to S/4HANA is not the same as an upgrade to a newer version. Indeed, a S/4HANA migration is frequently more akin to a new software implementation than an upgrade.

S/4HANA needs a corporation to rethink and reorganise its business processes to take use of S/4HANA’s superior capabilities because it has a simplified data model and offers many more features than SAP ECC.

Most SAP ECC systems have been substantially customised, with thousands of unique functions created to fit a company’s internal or industry-specific needs. Because S/4HANA contains many of these custom operations as standard functionality, they are not required. This means that firms should thoroughly review all of their processes before initiating a S/4HANA implementation to determine how they may be best adapted for S/4HANA and eliminate functions that aren’t required.

Organizations can choose between a brownfield or a greenfield approach when implementing S/4HANA. In a brownfield deployment, a company migrates its existing SAP landscape to S/4HANA in its entirety. This indicates that at least some legacy functions are still in use at the organisation. Although a brownfield implementation is typically less disruptive and time-consuming than a greenfield implementation, the organisation may not reap the full benefits of migrating to S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a cloud-based version of SAP S/4HANA

SAP announced S/4HANA Cloud, a multi-tenant SaaS version of S/4HANA, in March 2017. S/4HANA Cloud is best suited for enterprises with 1,500 or more people who want to run a two-tiered ERP system, in which a corporate entity runs a full business suite on premises, such as ECC or S/4HANA, and S/4HANA Cloud is implemented at the division or subsidiary level.

S/4HANA Cloud contains cutting-edge technologies like as machine learning via SAP Clea and a conversational digital assistant bot known as CoPilot.

S/4HANA Cloud, like most SaaS apps, has a new version issued every quarter. SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1709 was released in September 2017, following the on-premises naming standards of year and month of release.

Embedded analytics in SAP S/4HANA

Users can do real-time analyses on live transactional data with S/4HANA’s embedded analytics.

Virtual Data Models, prebuilt models, and reports based on SAP HANA Core Data Services evaluate HANA operational data without the need for a data warehouse. S/4HANA software includes analytics capabilities that do not require additional installation or licencing.

SAP S/4HANA is an ERP business suite based on the SAP HANA in-memory database that enables businesses to conduct real-time transactions and analyse data.